#tags #archiveapp-demo
There are three types of tags:
- Topic tags. They connect a note to a specific topic. A note about health issues of eating grains can be tagged with "nutrition". The note is not specifically about nutrition itself but falls under the broader topic.
- Ontology tags. They connect a note to a specific concept. If you write a note about the importance of healthy eating habits and tag it with "nutrition" you connected the note to the concept of nutrition itself. The note about health issues of eating grains has an ontology tag of "grains".
- Project tags. They connect notes under the umbrella of a specific project. If you write an essay on the first World War I you could tag notes with "ww1" if they are relevant to this essay. If you write a book on healthy diets, you can tag the above mentioned notes with "mybestdietadvice". The tag #archiveapp-demo would count as a project tag.
There are several issues to consider:
If you use topic tags a lot, you will run into problems once your archive grows.
Unless it is a very specific topic, you soon will get too many results. If you search for a tag, you are interested what you have written about the concept and not everything that could be related to it.
The proper way to capture topics in your archive is via structure notes. See: [[201705180836]]
The best way to write with any note archive is via the outline method. This is true for every software you use. Solely depending on project tags is a lazy approach that will punish you later. Use the Outline Method instead. Learn about the outline method on our blog: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/tags/outline/
Project tags are useful when you start a new project and want to collect a bunch of relevant notes. But in the long run, too many unsorted notes will accumulate. Use a structure note [[2017051808]] to organize your project instead. Then put links to your notes into an outline. See: [[201705110828]]
Another great use of project tags is to mark the top structure notes of a very complex project, like the structure notes for a book. Use your project tag for every structure note of the project's chapters. Then you can jump to these chapter notes quickly using the search instead of clicking your way through the archive from the main project note.